Lion Cascade

This is the figure of the nymph Aganippa. a work of the sculptor Fyodor Tolstoy. It is located in the Lion Cascade, which is compositionally linked with the Hermitage Pavilion, did not appear in the Lower Park until 1799-1800. Moreover the architect Andrei Voronikhin placed it not on the slope, but in the square between the Birch Tree and Marly Avenues. On a low stone wall stood eight vases and the figures of Hercules and Flora, replaced a year later by two lions. The water from the vases fell into a rectangular upper basin, then down two steps into the lower basin. In 1854-55 the architect Andrei Stakenschneider reconstructed Voronikhin's fountain. On a granite socle, identical in ground plan to the old cascade, he set up a colonnade of fourteen eight-meter high Ionic columns. They were made of dark grey granite and their bases and capitals were of white Carrara marble. By the colonnade stood bronze lions with jets gushing out of the jaws. On a granite mound in the middle of the basin, which was surrounded on three sides by the colonnade, stood the graceful figure of the nymph Aganippa, the work of the sculptor Fyodor Tolstoy.